Healing love

 

 

Meet Aisha and Affousata.  They are 1 year and a few months old. Their mom, Ramatou, brought them to the clinic a little more than a month ago.  One of them was very sick, and both of them were very malnourished.  

I remember when we visited them at home for the first time and seeing the girls sitting naked in the dirt.  As their young mom held a bag of soupy white porridge, one of the girls stood on her stick-like legs crying and reaching for it while leaning against her mother’s lap, legs that couldn't support even her thin body frame.

Ramatou is a student and won't be able to start working for another 2 months. After school loans she is already in debt and must rely on the rest of her extended family for money and food. While she’s away at school, it’s hard to know what the girls are being fed, although from the looks of them it’s definitely not very much. It's possible that the other aunties in the courtyard don’t make feeding them a priority because the twins aren’t their kids and they’re just two more mouths to feed anyway. 

This culture breeds the survival mindset, meaning that until the age when children can do anything useful they are often only another burden in a life that is already too hard. If a small child dies it is common for the mother to be told to stop crying, after all, it was only a baby. Here, the ones who suffer most from the effects of poverty are the kids. They are the ones who are innocent and helpless and who can do nothing about it.

They’re also the ones that God cares deeply about. The ones He asks us to take care of. In Proverbs 31:8, He reminds me of His heart for these little ones:

"Open your mouth for those who cannot speak, and for the rights of those who are left without help"

A little baby who died not too long ago because of careless neglect and issues that grown-ups couldn’t work out is still so clear in my mind. As is the resulting promise that I never ever wanted to wonder again if there was anything more I could have done to prevent a precious life from slipping away. One who was created in the image of God and who deserves a chance at life and a future.

We start to see the twins at the clinic regularly.  Whenever Ramatou brings them all the people on the staff know these little girls and come to ask how they are doing.  I am in all my glory getting to regularly make them bags of a super-nutritious concoction of peanut paste, dried milk, sugar, oil, and Moringa powder.

 

We also visit their family at home often to see how they are doing.  One Sunday Ramatou came to church with us in the little building where we meet right next to the clinic.  Somewhere in the middle of all this I think she started to realize that we really cared about her and her family.

Because it seemed like all of a sudden, something just changed. The twins came to the clinic one day with clean clothes and little hats covering their heads.  They were even wearing thin shoes on their tiny feet.  Ramatou said that Affousata had started to stand and even take a few steps on her own. As she tells us about these things, it seems like there is new life and hope in her voice and in her eyes.

We continue to visit them, and I notice that there is suddenly enough food to feed the twins and that now they are now always washed and wearing clean clothes. The girls’ previously overextended bellies are getting smaller while their arms and legs and beautiful little faces are getting fuller. 
  
I guess I can’t say for sure what changed, what made the difference for the better.  But I think that when you believe that someone really cares about you, it changes you.  You start to think that maybe you matter. Maybe there is hope. Maybe you are worth it. Maybe the lie you have believed for so long, that your life doesn't make a difference, isn't true. 

It is by our love that people will come to know that this hope is real and lasts forever because of Jesus. Jesus said that as we have been loved, we must love each other. That people would know His followers by the way that they love.

Because how can anyone even begin to grasp the truth that God cares about them if they have never experienced what love looks like in their life? This is what Jesus is all about, the hope He brings. That you are worth it. You are worth dying for. There is a God that wants you, who says I love you and you are mine. There is hope and joy unspeakable in knowing Jesus, in learning that you are a child of the King. There is no better news, no higher hope, no truer love. It changes lives and changes everything, for the better.